More than a dozen people gathered around the sound board setup that’s situated among main floor seating of the Saline High School Ellen A Ewing Performing Arts Center earlier this month. Most were students, some faculty and individuals who’d come in with skills from affiliation with local colleges. [1]
All were here to set the stage, literally and figuratively, for launch of the next SHS Drama Club theater season. [2]
As annual cycles go, mid-September is as good a mark as any — given our local high school as heart. August is a natural down time where availability of labor and weather typically proved conduscive to maintenance scheduling. Incoming freshmen come the month after, feeding need for new talent.
Presently this meant a particular focus on Hornet Light and Sound. Less than two weeks after their September 12 introduction meeting, newcomers who were interested in becoming part of the group would attend one of two ninety-minute training sessions on Ewing theater operations. A field trip to meet with area sound and lighting professionals, along with a production warehouse tour, would follow today. [3]
All of this has been designed to help homogenize a team blending newcomers and seasoned veterans into an assembly that not only gels, but is prepared to work interchangably as conditions often require.
They’ll be the tech crew behind SHS Drama Club productions of the play 12 Angry Jurors on November 22, 23, and 24, and the musical Newsies: The Musical, February 28, 29, and March 1. [4-11]
But Hornet Light and Sound had to step into the breach far earlier.
In addition to supporting all functions at the Ellen A Ewing Performing Arts Center, Hornet Light and Sound must be there for the Saline Middle School theater and outside organizations approved to perform at our high school. So they’ve already been back stage for most of September 14 from afternoon until evening for the “Chinese Moon Festival Variety Show.” Next week will come the first of a half-dozen October musical concerts.
Training covers not just the How? of operations, but Why? Lighting after all, isn’t merely about making a dark stage visible; ideally, it augments actor performances and set pieces as part of crafting mood. And there are rules for this. Rules for intensity, direction, and color.
As reported last March in Saline Journal, the Saline Area Schools theater programs have been developed to provide students with more than the already high value of participating in any given performance. Cultural Arts Program Specialist & Theater Manager Rebecca Groeb continues to assert that these provide lifelong skills — business skills. Who are your customers? What can you do to earn their business in the face of competing alternatives? How might this be accomplished most efficiently?
The 2019-2020 season launch meeting earlier this week certainly gave evidence of that.
References
- “Hornet Light and Sound is set to debut 2019-2020 theater season at SHS on September 12 (no reason you should notice)” Dell Deaton (August 19, 2019) Saline Journal.
- SHS Drama Club (home page).
- “Hornet Light and Sound” Saline Community Education Cultural Arts.
- “Performance: ’12 Angry Jurors’” (November 22, 2019) Saline Journal.
- “Performance: ’12 Angry Jurors’” (November 23, 2019) Saline Journal.
- “Performance: ’12 Angry Jurors’” (November 24, 2019) Saline Journal.
- “12 Angry Men (1957)” IMDb.
- “Newsies (1992)” IMDb.
- “Newsies: The Musical” (February 28, 2020) Saline Journal.
- “Newsies: The Musical” (February 29, 2020) Saline Journal.
- “Newsies: The Musical” (March 1, 2020) Saline Journal.
- “There is much more to Saline Community Education ‘Junior Theater’ than its stage performances this weekend” Dell Deaton (March 11, 2019) Saline Journal.
